Airplane

The gang outside the Detroit Institute of Arts

The Red Tide is the fourth book I have worked on with Josef Bastian.  Anyone who knows me and knows JB knows there is a hitch in our working relationship.  Josef is in Motor City Detroit, Michigan, USA, where the Nain Rouge Trilogy begins and takes place.  When I first contacted JB, I was living in Cottingham, East Yorkshire, England.  I have since moved from the North of England to the Capital city of London.  Still 3800 miles away from the Nain Rouge's stomping ground.

Research is the visual key to drawing sites I hardly know and the Internet is a godsend for this.  Certainly folks who know where I'm from can imagine how many books on Michigan history there are in Cottingham's local library.  Using other tourist's photos of landmarks from different angles help to create a mental three dimensional view of a place, be it the Detroit Institute of Arts, 8 Mile Road or the Rackham Memorial Fountain at Detroit Zoo.  At this point, the mighty power of imagination takes over and does most of the leg work.

I have been lucky enough to visit Michigan twice.  I have driven down 8 mile road and seen from afar the city of Detroit.  This is the only part of America I've seen, it's certainly a land very different from my own.  The roads are straight, long and wide and I have yet to see a US roundabout.  After spending so much time commuting by train and bus the only public transport I saw was the yellow school bus.  Buildings cloud the sky and the lakes are as huge as oceans.  Cash machines had drive thrus.  I would honestly give anything to go back to a land I illustrated.

If you look carefully, ever so carefully in my illustrations, you can see little hints of my world in a place I only wish I knew better.  The Nain Rouge's world.

A hint of my world; the house across the road was my home for 17 years.